


Smoke, Cards And Kara

by Jenwryn



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-15
Updated: 2007-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh, the haze of blue smoke, and the feel of tattered cards... but what he loves most is her laughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke, Cards And Kara

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd.

Smoke – thick, blue, and heavy with the varied, mingled scents of multiple brands – wafts in languid curls around the room. Kara Thrace sits there in the middle of it all, sprawled back in her chair, a gleam of certain victory in her eyes. The cards that she has in her right hand, their many-cornered edges held with an easy grasp, must be good. She has her shoulders back, singlet-covered breasts pushed carelessly towards the men, and women, at the table, and the whole set of her body speaking of how she’s winning and how _she knows it. _In her other hand she balances a cigar between loose-knuckled fingers and she takes a long drag at it before letting the smoke drift from her lips as she listens to her opponents’ banter. Someone says something that strikes her fancy and she widens her eyes, in that way she has about her – feigned shock, genuine mocking amusement, a flash of white pupil around the irises – and leans her head back and laughs.

Lee Adama loves to watch her laugh.

He raises his glass to his mouth, upwards through the blue haze, and takes a silent sip from it. He glances at the cards in his own hand, the corners of his own lips twitching, in the way they do, at the joke that has skipped towards him. He glances sideways at the lieutenant who made Kara laugh, and then glances back at Kara herself. She’s completely mad, of course, is Kara. Lee watches as she tosses her cards down, winning this round; watches as she makes one of her strange little triumphant noises, caught at the edges of breathlessness, and half-dances where she’s sitting, a jiggling little _a-huh-a-huh_ jive. Mad, yes – probably one of the most unhinged people he’s ever met, and he’s met some pretty unhinged bastards in his time. But it’s that insanity, bubbling in her veins, that becomes godsdamn inspiration when she’s fighting. She’s frakking petrifying at her work in the cockpit of a Viper.

Here, at the card table, though, with her glass half full in front of her and the blue smoke twining its fingers through her pale hair—

Ah, she’s laughing again.

Here, like this, with her eyes dancing and her head thrown back, mouth wide, wide open—

Here, like this, she’s still insane but he loves to watch her; loves to watch her laugh.

Her laughter is freer than anyone else’s. It’s louder and it comes from the depths of her guts, just rises up and rolls on out, uninhibited, like she simply couldn’t give a frak what anyone else thinks. Kara laughs like she lives.

And that's what Lee loves the most.


End file.
